Altered States: Drinking Big Tech Kool-Aid
by Miki Saxon
Yesterday I commented that no matter how stellar someone’s past performance it wasn’t a guarantee of future performance.
There are very few guarantees in life, but I do know of one thing you can count on.
And that is that the bosses of big tech lie.
They do it with flair, sincerity, a straight face and in writing.
Their devices listen to and share your words with outsiders — outside the company and the country.
Although no immediate action was taken against Apple or Amazon— which both have been found to also listen in on their users — the commissioner’s report “invited” the companies “swiftly review” their policies and procedures.
Apple says, “all reviewers are under the obligation to adhere to Apple’s strict confidentiality requirements,” but we all know that people blab.
The Terms of Service (TOS) go beyond straight lies by being opaque and obfuscated. Their rules and meaning are a constantly moving target that even the NYT can’t figure out
The Times reported 46 of the accounts to Instagram, the site responded within 24 hours that none violated its rules, without explaining why.
The accounts were scams using scraped images of innocent US military personnel to get money from innocent US citizens.
While fraud has proliferated on Facebook for years, those running the military romance scams are taking on not only one of the world’s most influential companies, but also the most powerful military — and succeeding.
Apparently fraud doesn’t violate the TOS.
But why should it, since violence, hate speech and bullying don’t.
It’s not as if your data is unidentifiable (there’s no such thing as “anonymized data”).
And “we care about your privacy” is the biggest lie of all.
Image credit: Mike Mozart
